Life ain't always beautiful........

I was driving home from work yesterday and this song came on the country station I was listening to: Gary Allan's "Life Ain't Always Beautiful". It somewhat stopped me in my tracks, made all my immediate thoughts float to the wayside and I simply listened. And while I drove along and listened, those lyrics screamed at me. It's been a weird set of circumstances lately in my life. I wish I could figure out the messages that are coming my way, but the words in this song almost seemed like they were speaking directly to me from someone I always went to for comfort and advice. Perhaps......

"Life ain't always beautiful,

Sometimes it's just plain hard.

Life can knock you down,

It can break your heart."

So true.

Life sure ain't always beautiful. Lately, I seem to feel this way a little more than I'd like to. I've got a great life; a super husband, amazing daughters, a job, a house, and relatively good health. Wish I could pinpoint why I feel the disappointment in my life lately. Perhaps I wish for more for me. I see people around me grabbing life, doing exactly what they want to be doing, and sometimes that green-eyed monster rears its ugly head. I want to reach the masses with my message of being positive, thankful, grateful, happy. I want to inspire people on a large scale, but somehow I feel as though I'm failing in this department. I feel like I'm on that dead end road, with not enough room to turn around and fix my course.

"Life ain't always beautiful,
You think you're on your way.
And it's just a dead end road
At the end of the day." 

As I drove the 8 mile ride home from school, this song became a reminder that life is not always beautiful and what you want it to be.  Lately, I have been struggling with some things, some that are in my control and some that are not. I’m not always good at dealing with things and recently certain things have been going on that I have been having a hard time dealing with. During the past 4 years, I grew into a strong woman. I learned how to tackle things with ease and not stress over little things. I have gotten good at not letting things get the best of me, especially when I seem to have to wrestle with my inner demons. But not this time. Right now, it has been a little bit harder. I'm not afraid to admit I'm struggling and really, that's OK.  I have learned some things and learning isn't always a bad thing!

"But the struggles make you stronger,
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has its own way
Of taking its sweet time."

It’s those struggles that have been keeping my mind occupied the past few months and consequently have caused the lack of writing here. When I'm in this mood, I don't always feel like writing. My inspiration seems to disappear and words don't come so easy. My mind has been elsewhere. You see, we all have those days where we feel less than what we are.  When we deny those feelings we aren’t being truthful to ourselves. While I try to put on a solid, brave front, the truth is, a few incidents over the past few months have really battered down my sense of self worth.

I am not a perfect person, nor have I ever professed to be.  Honestly, neither are any of you who might be reading this blog. I am flawed, beautifully flawed. There are days that I realize that more than others. Do I dwell on those things? Sometimes, if I am being honest (and you know I like to be honest in my blog postings!).  Sometimes it may take some time (like a few days) and sometimes it may take longer (like a few months), but in the end I just pick myself up by my boot straps and carry on!

"No, life ain't always beautiful
But I know I'll be fine
Hey, life ain't always beautiful
But what a beautiful ride
What a beautiful ride"

The words to this song scream out to us that simple reminder: we’ll all have problems in life, but through these tough times we must realize that we’re getting stronger and we must remember that “Life ain’t always beautiful – But it’s a beautiful ride.” It’s a beautiful ride.

Until tomorrow, my friends.....enjoy the ride! Think Thankfully!!!





Happy Birthday Grandma

The year was 1928. The President of the United States was Calvin Coolidge until the November election in which Herbert Hoover defeated Alfred E Smith. Mickey Mouse appeared in Steamboat Willie. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean. The US was in the middle of the prohibition and it was a time known as the Roaring Twenties.

1928. This year welcomed Walter Mondale, Maya Angelou, Shirley Temple, and Adam West into this great big world. It also welcomed into the world one of the most beautiful and amazing people I know: My Grandma LaRue. Today, she turns a whopping 87 years old!! My gift to her is this blog posting even though I know she will never see it.....

Dear Grandma,

Today is your 87th birthday.  It gives me great pride to be writing you this letter today. It means you are still here to enjoy life with all of us, a simple fact that I cherish each and every day. I thank God for allowing you to see another birthday and I pray each day that God allows you to see many more! You’ve been on my mind a lot lately. I sincerely hope you know how grateful I am for you. You have played a significant role in shaping who I am becoming as a person. You may not realize this but you are the one of the most incredible sources of constant, consistent, and unsolicited encouragement in my life. When I think of you, I know I am loved. I know when I call that you will lift my mood and put a smile on my face, and you will do what you can if there is a need. Sometimes in the difficult times of being an adult, it is nice to know there is someone I can turn to who will just make things better, simply by offering a small piece of advice. On this, your birthday, all I can say is thank you. Thanks for showing me love that is not based on my performance in life. Thank you for always being there for me during my 42 years of life. Thanks for egg sandwiches, a candy cupboard, ham barbeque, and sodas. Thanks for Christmas memories at 801 Delaware, family Christmas parties, and being a Bingo nut. Thanks for always believing in me. Thanks for showing me what kind of legacy a grandparent can leave in the life of her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  I hope I have the same privilege in the lives of my future grandchildren. Happy Birthday, Grandma. I love you so very much.

All my love and respect,

Your firstborn granddaughter

Until tomorrow, my friends........Think Thankfully



Happy 4 years, Think Thankfully!

So, today is the 4th anniversary of my nightly (personal page) Thankful Posts. I've been doing these posts for 4 years, without fail. 4 years. 4 years can be translated into:

•126,316,800 seconds

•2,105,280 minutes

•35,088 hours

•1462 days

•208 weeks and 6 days

     Where did Think Thankfully come from? Let me tell you today, in what I hope will be the start of more consistent blogging again. I miss it. I need to get back to writing. Here's where Think Thankfully got its start:

     Between July and September 2011, I had three relatively traumatic losses in my life when three of my friends lost their lives in three very different ways. Rewind the timeline of my life a little further and the start of my emotional demise came in April of 2007 when my grandfather entered his eternal rest. At the time I was 34 years old and had not experienced loss in this form. I had all four of my grandparents still alive and very active in my life (and the lives of my daughters). Trying to work through his death was very tough for me. He was a staple in my life. As the pain slowly started to dissipate a bit….WHAM! Life handed me another horrible loss in January 2009 with the loss of my other grandfather, a sudden loss that no one was expecting. Fast forward to January 2010 when my beloved grandmother suffered a horrific fall and was eventually called home in February, just a few short days before my birthday (9 to be exact). The loss I felt when she passed spiraled out of control. My grandmother was my rock. She was my everything….my world. As I sit here and write this, the tears still form in my eyes.  I still feel the ache of losing my grandmother, I miss her terribly.

     As stated earlier, between July and September 2011, I had three relatively traumatic losses in my life. In July, I lost a lifelong childhood friend to a massive heart attack at 40 years old. We grew up in the church together, sang in the choir, spent time in youth group, all the stuff kids do. Learning of his death seemed to bring to the forefront of my thoughts all the feelings of loss I felt when my three grandparents had passed. I could hardly believe someone MY AGE had suffered a massive heart attack. It didn’t seem real. Then came August and that meant another friend gone. A friend I had gone through high school with (although she was a year ahead of me), decided life was just too tough for her and she took her own life at the young age of 39. While this loss caught me off guard, I still have trouble understanding the taking of one’s own life. I just cannot imagine feeling that low, but by September, I, myself, felt as if I was teetering on the verge of a horrible depression.

     And then, September rolled around and life finally dealt me the final blow in my sorrow, sadness, heartbreak. One of my dear friends passed away, quite unexpectedly at the age of 41, after having surgery to correct some back issues. It was the death of my friend Rick that seemed to send my feelings on a roller coaster ride into oblivion. I walked around in somewhat of a daze for awhile, every time my mind had a bit of rest, thoughts went right to Rick. I had a hard time understanding why this had to happen, much like when my grandmother passed away. I had such built up anger that such a wonderful person was taken from me, anger I had suppressed for quite some time (almost 2 years to be exact), anger that resurfaced with the passing of Rick.

     It was October 4, 2011. The day before my last living grandmother’s 83rd birthday, when I realized I had so much to be thankful for. Rather than living life with anger and bitterness building up, I had to focus on all I had to be thankful for. My job had been stressful at the time (it still is, if I am to be honest here) and I could feel myself becoming someone I did not want to be. I wasn’t sleeping at night and was basically going through the motions of daily life. Nothing was fun anymore.

     That is what led me to my thankful journal. I decided to use Facebook as an outlet for my gratitude. My friends became my sounding board as I posted my THINK THANKFULLY posts!  Each night before I decided to shut down the Facebook page for the night, I reflected on the things of that day that I was most thankful for, sometimes with an explanation and sometimes without. I began to sleep better, smile more, enjoy life, and my life took a turn for the better. I promised myself to post things each day for a year that I was most thankful for. This idea has been going strong for 4 years. I never stopped. I've posted many things I've been thankful for in 4 years time and it has truly been all of these things and much much more that I am thankful for in my life and have brought me to the place I am today; A happy, grateful place living with a happy, grateful heart.

 

 

Until tomorrow, my friends......